CAUSES

1. LATE MEDIEVAL SCIENCE

Modern science can trace some of its origins to the four- teenth century, when the first
significant modifications of Aristotle’s scientific theories began to emerge. The most
significant of these refinements was the theory of impetus. Natural philosophers of the
fourteenth century also began to recommend direct, empirical observation in place of the
traditional tendency to accept preconceived no- tions regarding the operation of nature.
This approach to answering scientific ques- tions did not result in the type of rigorous
experimentation that Bacon demanded three centuries later, but it did encourage scientists
to base their theories on the facts that emerged from an empirical study of nature. The
unchallenged position of theology as the dominant subject in late medieval universities also
guaranteed that new scientific ideas would receive little fa- vor if they challenged Christian
doctrine.

2. RENAISSANCE SCIENCE Natural philosophers during the Renaissance contributed more

than their late medieval predecessors to the rise of modern science. Many of the scientific
discoveries of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries drew their inspiration from
Greek scientific works that had been rediscovered during the Renaissance. Renaissance
revival of the philosophy of Neoplatonism (see Chapter 7) made an even more direct
contribution to the birth of modern science. While most me- dieval natural philosophers
relied on the ideas of Aristotle, Neoplatonists drew on the work of Plotinus (205–270 c.e.),
the last great philosopher of antiquity who synthesized the work of Plato, other ancient
Greek philosophers, and Persian religious traditions. Neoplatonists stressed the unity of the
natural and spiritual worlds. To unlock the mysteries of this living world, Neoplatonists
turned to mathematics and believed that the sun, as a symbol of the divine soul, logically
stood at the center of the universe. Modern science resulted from an encounter between the
mechanical philosophy, which held that matter was inert, and Neoplatonism, which claimed
that the natural world was alive.

3. PROTESTANTISM

Protestantism played a limited role in causing the Scientific Revolution. In the early years of
the Reformation, Protestants were just as hostile as Catholics to the new science.
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, moreover, Catholics as well as
Protestants engaged in scientific research. Indeed, some of the most prominent European
natural philosophers, including Galileo and Descartes, were devout Catholics. Nonetheless,
Protestantism encouraged the emergence of modern science in three ways.

 First, as the Scientific Revolution gained steam in the seventeenth century,

Protestant governments were more willing than Catholic authorities to allow the
publication and dissemination of new scientific ideas. Protestant governments, for
example, did not prohibit the publication of books.
 Second, seventeenth-century Protestant writers emphasized the idea that God
revealed his intentions not only in the Bible, but also in nature itself.
 Third, many seventeenth-century Protestant scientists believed that the millennium,
a period of one thousand years when Christ would come again and rule the world,
was about to begin. Millenarians believed that during this period knowledge would
increase, society would improve, and humans would gain control over nature.
 Protestant scientists, including Boyle and Newton, conducted their research and
experiments believing that their work would contribute to this improvement of
human life after the Second Coming of Christ.

PATRONAGE

Scientists could not have succeeded without financial and institutional support. Only an
organizational structure could give science a permanent status, let it develop as a discipline,
and give its members a professional identity. nstead of the universities, scientists depended
on the patronage of wealthy and influential individuals, especially the kings, princes, and
great nobles who ruled European states. This group included Pope Urban VIII, ruler of the
Papal States. Academies in which groups of scientists could share ideas and work served as
a second important source of patronage. One of the earliest of these institutions was the
Academy of the Lynx-Eyed in Rome; The mission of the Royal Society in England was the
promotion of scientific knowledge through experimentation. It also placed the results of
scientific research at the service of the state. Members of the Royal Society, for example, did
research on ship construction and military technology.

THE PRINTING PRESS

Printing made it much easier for scientists to share their discoveries with others. During
the Middle Ages, books were handwritten. Errors could creep into the text as it was being
copied, and the number of copies that could be made of a manuscript limited the spread of
scientific knowledge. The spread of printing ensured that scientific achievements could be
preserved more accurately and presented to a broader audience. The availability of printed
copies also made it much easier for other scientists to correct or supplement the data that
the authors supplied. Illustrations, diagrams, tables, and other schematic drawings that
helped to convey the author’s findings could also be printed. The entire body of scientific
knowledge thus became cumulative. Printing also made members of the nonscientific
community aware of the latest advances in physics and astronomy and so helped to make
science an integral part of the culture of educated Europeans.

MILITARY AND ECONOMIC CHANGE

The Scientific Revolution occurred at roughly the same time that both the conduct of
warfare and the European economy were under- going dramatic changes. As territorial
states increased the size of their armies and ar- senals, they demanded more accurate
weapons with longer range. Some of the work that physicists did during the seventeenth
century was deliberately meant to improve weaponry. Members of the Royal Society in
England, for example, conducted extensive scientific research on the trajectory and velocity
of missiles.

The needs of the emerging capitalist economy also influenced scientific research. The study
of mechanics, for example, led to new techniques to ventilate mines and raise coal or ore
from them, thus making mining more profitable.
SCIENTIFIC DEVELOPMENTS

(A) ASTRONOMY

1. PTOLEMY AND ARISTOTLE

1.1 Until the mid-sixteenth century, most natural philosophers—as scientists were known
at the time—accepted the views of the ancient Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (100–
170CE).

1.2 According to Ptolemy and Aristotle, the center of the universe was a station- ary
Earth, around which the moon, the sun, and the other planets revolved in circular
orbits.

2. HELLOCENTRIC THEORY

2.1 The views of Aristotle and Ptolemy were shattered by Nicholas Copernicus (1473–
1543). In his book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (not published until after his
death in 1543 because he feared the ridicule of fellow astronomers).

2.2 Copernicus suggested that the sun was the center of the universe and that the earth
and planets revolved in circular orbits.

2.3 This Heliocentric Theory that the sun—and not the earth—was the center of the
universe contradicted contemporary scientific thought and challenged the traditional
teachings of hundreds of years.

2.4 Copernicus’ book had enormous scientific and religious consequences.By characterizing
the earth as just another planet, he destroyed the impression that the earthly world was
different from the heavenly world.

3. Galileo

3.1 While Kepler was examining planetary motion, Galileo Galilei, a Florentinian (1564–
1642), continued the attack on traditional views of science.

3.2 Using observation rather than speculation to help him formulate ideas—such as his laws
on the motion of falling bodies—Galileo established experimentation, the cornerstone of
modern science.

3.3 He applied experimental methods to astronomy by using the newly invented telescope.
Using this instrument, he discovered:

a) the four moons of Jupiter,

b) and that the moon had a mountainous surface, much like the earth.

3.4 His discovery destroyed an earlier notion that planets were crystal spheres (the earth
was the center of the universe and around it moved separate, transparent crystal spheres:
the moon, the sun, five planets, and fixed stars), and challenged the traditional belief in the
unique relationship between the earth and the moon.
3.5 Galileo’s evidence reinforced and confirmed the theory of Copernicus.

3.6 Following the publication of his book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
(1632), which openly criticized the works of Aristotle and Ptolemy, Galileo was arrested,
imprisoned, tried for heresy by the Papal Inquisition, and forced to publicly recant his
views.

3.7 In modern times, Galileo’s trial has come to symbolize the conflict between religious
beliefs and scientific knowledge.

4.KEPLER

4.1 Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), using data that Brahe had collected, confirmed the
central position of the sun in the universe.

4.2 In New Astronomy (1609) Kepler also demonstrated that the planets, including the
Earth, followed elliptical rather than circular orbits and that physical laws governed their
movements.

4.3 Not many people read Kepler’s book, however, and his achievement was not fully
appreciated until many decades later.

5. ISAAC NEWTON

5.1 The greatest figure of the Scientific Revolution was Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727), an
Englishman. In his book Principia Mathematica (1687), he integrated the ideas of
Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo into one system of mathematical laws to explain the orderly
manner in which the planets revolved around the sun.

5.2 The key feature of his thesis was the law of universal gravitation. According to this
law, every body in the universe attracts every other body in precise mathematical
relationships.

5.3 Newton’s law mathematically proved that the sun, moon, earth, planets, and all other
bodies moved in accordance with the same basic force of gravitation.

5.4Such proof showed that the universe operated by rules that could be explained through
mathematics and that a religious interpretation was not the sole means of comprehending
the forces of nature.

(B) Chemistry

6.1 The science today called chemistry originated in the study and practice of alchemy, the
art of attempting to turn base metals into gold or silver and to identify natural substances
that could be used in the practice of medicine.

6.2 During the seventeenth century chemistry gained further recognition as a legitimate
field of scientific research, largely as the result of the work of Robert Boyle (1627–1691).

6.3 Boyle, who also had an interest in alchemy, destroyed the prevailing idea that all basic
constituents of matter share the same structure.
(C ) BIOLOGY

7.1 The English physician William Harvey (1578–1657) made one of the great medical
discoveries of the seventeenth century by demonstrating in 1628 that blood circulates
throughout the human body.

7.2 Traditional science had maintained that blood originated in the liver and then flowed
outward through the veins.

7.3 The only gap in his theory was the question of how blood went from the ends of the
arteries to the ends of the veins. This question was answered in 1661, when scientists, using
a new instrument known as a microscope, could see the capillaries connecting the veins and
arteries. Harvey, however, had set the standard for future biological research.

The Search for Scientific Knowledge

1. The natural philosophers who made these scientific discoveries worked in different
disciplines, and each followed his own procedures for discovering scientific truth.

2. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was no “scientific method.” Many natural
philosophers, however, shared similar views about how nature operated and the means by
which humans could acquire knowledge of it.

3. In searching for scientific knowl- edge, these scientists observed and experimented, used
deductive reasoning, expressed their theories in mathematical terms, and argued that
nature operated like a machine. These features of scientific research ultimately defined a
distinctly Western approach to solving scientific problems.

4. The Scientific Revolution also led to a better way of obtaining knowledge. The most
prominent feature of scientific research in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Europe was:

a) the observation of nature, combined with

b) the testing of hypotheses by rigorous experimentation.

5. Two important philosophers were Francis Bacon (1561–1626) and René Descartes
(1596–1650). Both were responsible for key aspects in the improvement of scientific
methodology.

(A) Inductive and Empiricism

1. Francis Bacon was an English politician and writer, who advocated that new knowledge
had to be acquired through an:

a) Inductive (The mental process by which theories are established only after the
systematic accumulation of large amounts of data) ,

b) Experimental, reasoning process, Empiricism (The practice of testing scientific theories

by observation and experiment.)

2. Bacon rejected the medieval view of knowledge based on tradition, and believed instead
that it was necessary to collect data, observe, and draw conclusions. This approach is the
foundation of the scientific method.

(B) Deductive Reasoning

1. René Descartes was a French mathematician and philosopher. Like Bacon, he scorned the
traditional science and broke with the past by writing the Discourse on the Method (1637) in
French rather than Latin, which had been the intellectual language of the Middle Ages.
Unlike Bacon, Descartes stressed deductive reasoning.

2. The second feature of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientific research was the use
of deductive reasoning to establish basic scientific truths or principles.

3. From these principles other ideas or laws could be deduced logically. Just as induction is
linked to empiricism, so deduction is connected to rationalism.

4. Unlike empiricism—the idea that we know truth through what the senses can
experience—rationalism insists that the mind contains rational categories independent of
sensory observation.

5. He believed that it was necessary to doubt everything that could be doubted. His famous
quote—“Cogito ergo sum” (“I think therefore I am”)—proved his belief in his own existence
and nothing else.

6. He believed that, as in geometry, it is necessary to use deductive reasoning and logic to

determine scientific laws governing things.

7. Descartes’ view of the world (now called Cartesian Dualism) reduced natural law to
matter and the mind, or the physical and the spiritual.

Bacon’s inductive experimentalism and Descartes’ deductive, mathematical, and logical

thinking combined into the scientific method, which began taking hold of society in the late
seventeenth century.

Although rational deduction proved to be an essential feature of scientific methodology, the

limitations of an exclusively deductive approach became apparent when Descartes and his
followers deduced a theory of gravitation from the principle that objects could influence
each other only if they actually touched. This theory, as well as the principle upon which it
was based, lacked an empirical foundation and eventually had to be abandoned.

Much of seventeenth-century scientific experimentation and deduction assumed that the

natural world operated as if it were a machine made by a human being. This mechanical
philosophy of nature appeared most clearly in the work of Descartes. According to
Descartes, the mind was completely dif- ferent from the body and the rest of the material
world. Unlike the body, the mind was an immaterial substance that could not be extended in
space, divided, or mea- sured mathematically, the way one could record the dimensions of
the body. Because Descartes made this sharp distinction between the mind and the body,
we describe his philosophy as dualistic.